Edano says he didn't deliberately mislead

The chief government spokesman during Japan's nuclear crisis testified on May 27 that he did not deliberately mislead the public about the extent of the accident.

Trade and industry minister Yukio Edano told a parliamentary investigative panel that the government did not fully understand the damage at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after a massive earthquake and tsunami last year.

Edano has been accused of failing to provide full information about the accident and of downplaying health dangers.

He denied there was any cover-up and said he repeatedly used the phrases “no immediate risk'' and “just to be safe'' in his briefings because that's what officials believed at the time.

“I'm sorry for our misjudgment,'' he said.

Eventually, the government acknowledged that three reactor cores had melted at the plant in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The parliamentary panel is the only public inquiry into the accident at which top nuclear regulators and officials from the plant's operator have testified. Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who led disaster management at the height of the crisis, is to testify on May 28.

A separate independent investigation said in a report in February that the government withheld information about the full danger of the disaster from its own people and from the U.S., causing public distrust and straining relations with Japan's biggest ally.

Edano said the U.S. government was obviously frustrated by the scattered information provided by Japan and sought to place American nuclear experts at the prime minister's office, but he refused, citing Japanese sovereignty. He said the request came through U.S. Ambassador John Roos three days after the disaster hit.

“I declined the request,'' Edano said. “The prime minister's office is a place to make decisions as a sovereign nation and it was not desirable to have foreign officials stationed there.''

IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--A high school student who thought she was only temporarily fleeing her home during the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and remains an evacuee to this day, will address an event at the United Nations headquarters this month.

Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. will stand trial over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster after an independent judicial panel of citizens on July 31 again decided that mandatory indictments are warranted.

Nuclear plant workers in Japan will be allowed to be exposed to more than twice the current level of radiation in emergency situations, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s Radiation Council.

OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Tokyo Electric Power Co. on July 28 started removing a canopy covering a damaged reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to prepare for the eventual extraction of spent nuclear fuel inside.